RoboCup World Championship: The finals
The final of the 3D Soccer Simulation League fulfilled all expectations of a final. Magma Offenburg played against FC Portugal and initially seemed to have no chance against the strong dribbling players.
After just 54 seconds, Offenburg conceded the first goal after a Portuguese player went it alone. With the 0:2, FC Portugal showed that they also master long, high shots.
The players from Magma Offenburg, on the other hand, were able to create chances with long passes, and were usually quicker on the ball because they ran faster, but then usually needed too long to get the shot. Shortly before the end of the first half, however, the goal was achieved in this way.
At the beginning of the second half, an Offenburg player was able to prevail in a duel and equalize with an oblique shot. Soon after, Portugal sank the ball again into the Offenburg goal. The goalkeeper jumped into the right corner, but not far enough. With the time remaining, Portugal hit the bar (or the post, it’s hard to say for sure) and Offenburg tried to turn the game around, but to no avail.
FC Portugal is world champion in this league after a game that was exciting up to the last second.
Small Size League
In the final of Division B of the Small Size League, the luhbots from Hanover were beaten 3:0 by the reigning world champion RoboCIn from Pernambuco in Brazil. Due to difficulties in receiving the ball, valuable seconds were repeatedly lost in order to concede a goal.
However, the Hanoverians did not appear unhappy. Winning the runner-up title in the second tournament is not a bad result either. Division B is the entry-level Small Size League, where games are played on a smaller pitch.
In Division A, reigning world champion TIGERs Mannheim and the ZJUNict team from Hangzhou in China met – one of the few teams from China that traveled to the RoboCup this year. There are also notably few teams from Iran this time. It is unclear whether the escalation of the global political situation is already having an effect here or whether it is more due to the fact that the invitation letters required for obtaining a visa were sent out too late by the organizers of the RoboCup.
So far, it has always been a special advantage of the RoboCup that rivalries between the great powers have not affected the broad international mix at this tournament and that the exchange of experiences was also possible across political differences. It remains to be seen how this will develop in the coming years.
This year, the Chinese held up well against the Mannheim Tigers. The goalkeeper made several saves at the last moment. Neither team was able to score in extra time either, so the final had to be decided by penalties. “We didn’t prepare for this,” groaned one team member.
In the Small Size League, a penalty kick means that the player has ten seconds to dribble and shoot the ball towards the goal. The Mannheim team started and scored. The Chinese robot dribbled for ten seconds without shooting. This was repeated three times. Apparently, Team ZJUNict hadn’t prepared for this situation either – which brought the Tigers the world title again.
Middle Size League
In the Middle Size League, too, there was a decision with penalty kicks – or sometimes not: After several penalties, the game for third place was still a draw. Thus, the French team RC Toulon was declared the winner based on the results in the preliminary round. The defeated members of the LAR@MSL team from Portugal didn’t exactly celebrate like losers either.
In the final, World Champion Tech United met Team Falcons. Both teams are based in Eindhoven, where the next RoboCup World Championship will also take place next year. Tech United didn’t get through as expected, the Falcons made it difficult for the champions, defended very well and repeatedly showed beautiful combinations of passes, with which they brought the ball twice over the opposing goal line. However, the Tech United robots scored six times and are thus world champions again.
Standard Platform and Humanoids
The end game in the Standard Platform League, on the other hand, ended as expected with zero, more precisely: 9:0 for the reigning world champion B-Human in the game against the HTWK Robots, who put up a good fight, also vigorously cheered on by their human supervisors were, but then failed again and again at the last moment.
The favorites won again in the Humanoid League: In the Adult Size, the robots of the NimbRo team scored eight times against the HERoEHS, who could not score a single goal. The Kid Size final was more exciting: The CIT Brains were initially able to keep up with world champion Rhoban and equalize to 2:2, but in the end had to admit defeat with a 2:5.
For all further results in the other leagues and sub-leagues, especially RoboCup Junior, please refer to the RoboCup homepage as well as to the homepages of the individual leagues. Almost all games have been videotaped by team members and will soon be available on the internet. It’s worth taking a look. (To home page)
